Dark Exodus

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  He could have been mistaken, but Elijah thought that he might have heard a muffled squeal of excitement from the other side of the door.

  • • •

  “Tell me about this map,” John Fogg said to Nicole.

  “Well, it’s made of pieces of skin,” she explained. “David had been putting it together for most of his life. Animal skin at the start, but mostly people skin over the last forty years or so.”

  “And he was receiving orders on how to do this from Hell?”

  Nicole nodded. “The Dark Lords, right?” she looked over to an empty area of the room, but John knew that something was there, and only she could see it.

  “Yeah,” she then answered. “The Dark Lords told him how to do it, and to expect Fritz and the demon he calls the Cardinal.”

  “And they killed him, took the piece of the key from his stomach, then left with the map?”

  “That sounds about it,” Nicole said.

  “The map,” John then said.

  “Yeah?” she questioned. “Would be superhelpful to get a look.”

  “It would,” she agreed. “But it went out the door with the ugly twins.”

  “But your ghost buddy here,” John said, pointing to the empty space. “He saw it, right?”

  Nicole nodded. “Course he did,” she said. “He made it.”

  “Could he show you?”

  She thought about it for a moment and knew the answer. There had been ghosts showing her stuff inside her skull since Nana souped up her abilities the other day.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I bet he could.”

  He watched as she looked back toward the empty spot.

  “Wanna really screw over those Dark Lords?” she asked the place. “Show me the map. Could you do that?”

  John watched her expression to gauge what the answer would be.

  Nicole smiled, leaning her head forward ever so slightly.

  “Put those images right inside here,” she told the ghost. “And I will guarantee we will fuck up their shit big-time.”

  And her promise was correct; John had every intention of doing just that.

  Fucking up their shit—big-time.

  21

  It seemed that they had forgotten that Theo could change her shape.

  Her bones shifting, and morphing, allowing her to slip from the bindings that held her to the gurney with ease.

  Or maybe they just believed that she would behave herself.

  But it was the circle of protection that they’d placed around the stretcher that gave her some pause.

  A thousand demonic minds thought at once, looking for the angle that would allow her escape.

  Theo tried to fight them, to stamp them down, but there was nothing she could do. She was helpless in the situation, a mere observer looking out through her own eyes as the demonic controlled her body.

  Answering the summons that had been put forth.

  She looked around the room while still sitting on the gurney. There was no way that she could step beyond the mystical circle, the aftereffects would likely be devastatingly harmful to her body, as well as to the demons that called her form home.

  But the demonic were sly, always searching for a way to escape out into the world no matter how much thought was put into their captivity.

  Theo had no idea how she would escape and prayed that she wouldn’t even though she was desperate to learn who it was with the power to override the sigils put upon her body to control her demons.

  Her body perched upon the bed and had begun to make the strangest of noises, a low, throaty sound that seemed to vibrate through the air of the room and beyond.

  What are you doing? she asked herself, waiting for the inevitable answer.

  The cockroaches came from the shadows of the room, down from beneath the ceiling tiles, and up from the drains in the floor. Crawling about the room in the thousands.

  The insects had a purpose, listening to the commands of one of the demons that had infested her with the power to command the lowly.

  Theo watched from the prison of her psyche as the insects scurried about the floor, their focus entirely devoted to the mystical circle placed around her stretcher.

  She suddenly understood what was going on and was both horrified and fascinated by the actions.

  The roaches were eating away at the chalk comprising the mystical barrier.

  Breaking the circle.

  The demons were chattering with anticipation, ready to move when . . .

  The circle was broken, and she was gone, the power held by the mystical barrier no longer enabled.

  Theo threw open the door out into the hallway and was met by armed security. They were shocked to see her, their responses sluggish. They had weapons, guns like Griffin’s, but they would do no damage to her if they were never fired.

  She moved like a flash, grabbing one man by the throat and smashing him to the floor. The other she pounced upon, driving him into the wall. The demons wanted more, more blood, more broken bones, but the siren command was insistent that they come, and come now.

  Though they did not want to, the demons obeyed, and she proceeded down the corridor at a brisk clip, moving along the hardwood floors in a loping stride, very much like how a gorilla might move.

  At the end of the corridor there were more personnel, people with their special guns, but not quick enough to use them. She smashed their faces into walls and floors, rendering them unconscious before they even had the opportunity to fight back.

  Inside the office was more of the same. There were even a few inside who attempted magick to restrain her, but they had no idea what they were dealing with in regard to her.

  It took quite a bit of power to take down a body possessed by a thousand demons.

  Tensed atop a desk, she scanned the room for danger. All had been taken care of, everyone had been dispatched.

  She listened to the sound of summoning, multiple sets of eyes looking out through her skull falling upon the elevator door at the back of the room.

  There, she thought. The one who was calling her was somewhere behind that door.

  Her body bounded from the desk, slamming into the heavy elevator doors. She studied the doors and looked to see a special lock where a key would be inserted to part the doors.

  Another of the demonic entities residing inside her was brought to the forefront, and she watched with fascination as the index finger on her left hand was brought to the lock and, with great force, jammed into the hole. Theo could feel the bones break, tendons rip, and skin tear; and then something occurred.

  The inserted finger began to change, to shift and alter to take on the shape of the key that would have opened the lock.

  With a twist of her hand, the lock was tripped, and the doors to the elevator slid open.

  Theo bounded within as the doors closed, and the elevator began its descent.

  The voice continued to call her, the demons just clamoring to obey. She had no idea who, or what, could have the power to control her actions so thoroughly.

  The elevator eventually came to a stop, and she found herself crouching for what awaited her on the other side.

  The door slid open to show a man sitting, reading at a desk. His eyes grew wide as they saw her, his hand going to another of those special weapons with the ability to drive lesser demons from a body.

  This man was faster, the gun raised and firing before she could leave the elevator. Three shots left the gun, driving her backward into the elevator wall.

  The pain was excruciating, but she managed to shuck it off, slithering across the floor of the elevator, her bones nearly liquefied. The man continued to shoot uselessly as she went beneath the desk, rising from the floor at his feet to look him square in the eye.

  Theo thought that they would kill him, that they woul
d open his skull and scoop out his brain, but the voice . . .

  The summoning beckoned her to be quick.

  Driving her forehead into the man’s face, she rendered him unconscious and turned toward the door across from where he’d sat.

  This was where the one who controlled her would be found.

  Her bones solid again, Theo walked to the door and opened it.

  She gasped at the sight of the being standing in the mystical circle before her. There was no mistaking what he was.

  “It’s about time,” the angel said to her. “Now be a dear and get me out of this circle.”

  • • •

  Elijah escorted Emma Rose across the back parking lot of the Coalition facility toward the waiting military chopper.

  “I’ve never been on a helicopter before,” she said, eyes twinkling with excitement.

  “Then you’re in for quite the treat,” Elijah told her, placing a comforting hand upon her back as they approached the waiting craft.

  One of his operatives walked down the ramp from within the belly of the large transport craft and approached them.

  “Sir?” the man whose name was Miller addressed him.

  “Yes, Mr. Miller, what can I do for you?”

  “Are you planning on coming with us, sir?” he asked.

  “Why yes I am,” Elijah said. “And Emma Rose as well.”

  The girl smiled at Miller. “Hi,” she said, and waved at him. “I’ve never been on a helicopter before.”

  “Sir, I would strongly advise that you and the girl remain at home base,” Miller said. “Team Brimstone is more than capable of handling this situation.”

  Team Brimstone, he thought. It brought back memories of that time so long ago, of a similar mission.

  Elijah looked at the man and smiled knowingly.

  “I’m more than aware of the capabilities of you, and your team, Mr. Miller,” Elijah said. “If my memory serves me, I trained the majority.”

  “I understand, sir, but . . .”

  “This mission has the potential to be something quite dangerous,” Elijah said. “What kind of leader would I be to allow people under my command to enter such a situation with me sitting comfortably back home?”

  Miller just stared.

  “Very good, Miller,” Elijah said to him. “Let’s see about getting this bird into the air, shall we?”

  He placed a hand upon Emma Rose’s back and gestured for her to climb up the ramp into the belly of the transport copter.

  The others of the Brimstone Team were getting themselves prepared, some thumbing through worn books of spells, incantations, and protections, while others looked as though they might have been meditating or praying.

  The ones who saw him there stiffened, reacting much the way Miller had.

  “Sir,” a young lady by the name of Dexter said as she slipped rosary beads into a side pocket on her utility vest.

  Elijah nodded.

  “Listen up,” Miller called out, coming up the platform into the chopper behind him.

  “Mr. Covington will be joining us on this mission,” he said.

  Elijah could feel the tension suddenly intensify. Good, Elijah thought. If his being there made them more cautious, then so be it.

  He took a seat away from the others, motioning for Emma Rose to sit beside him. She did that, and he showed her how to buckle the seat belts.

  Where they were going, they would need to be in top form.

  The helicopter’s engines turned over with a deafening roar followed by the increasing whine of the propeller blades as they began to spin faster and faster.

  He looked over to see the scared expression on Emma Rose’s face, reaching across to take her hand in his.

  “We’ll be fine,” he told her, giving her hand a squeeze.

  He hoped that he was right.

  And as the chopper lifted off, he found his thoughts drifting back to another time, another chopper ride.

  The destination the same as today’s.

  • • •

  Elijah remembered his last visit to Scopa House over eighteen years ago in staccato flashes.

  They were like knife stabs, each flash of memory a scar left upon his already damaged soul.

  The bodies of Randolph Scopa’s followers lying in a circle within the grand ballroom, skin leathery and dry, stretched tight across bone, each and every one sucked dry of life-sustaining fluids as well as their souls.

  Sacrifices.

  Offerings to what hovered pulsing and crackling in the air above the vast dance floor.

  A rip, a tear in the very fabric of reality, and he could not help but stare into it, tempted to take a look at what could possibly await on the other side.

  And wonder if there was someone—or something—on the opposite end thinking the very same.

  Just as he’d had that thought, and the fear had almost taken him, the hole—the jagged rip in time and space fluttering before him—began to stretch and hiss and moan like a woman in the throes of childbirth.

  And something began to emerge.

  His team had stood firm.

  He had been drawn toward the scene, his single eye fixated upon the spot, almost as if his curiosity and force of will were helping whatever it was on the other side of that hole to find its way across.

  Elijah remembered the feeling of a heat so intense, he wondered if his flesh might melt from the bone, but also a cold so deep and chilling within his chest that it stole away his ability to breathe.

  He stood and watched and waited for what seemed like an eternity before they had arrived.

  The refugees.

  The divine creature, its alabaster flesh covered in blackened burns, its beautiful wings burned away to mere nubs protruding from its back, stumbling from the jagged tear, its body smoldering. And in its arms it had held something, protected something with all that it could.

  Something that wriggled and wailed.

  A baby.

  Elijah glanced over to Emma Rose, sitting there beside him, her hand clutched tightly in his. How much she had grown, how beautiful she’d become.

  And the divine creature, the Messenger, had told him about his future, and the future of the world when the Dark Exodus began.

  If it began.

  That was the moment when everything had changed, and he knew.

  Things would have to be done to prevent it from happening if they were to survive.

  Things.

  Some too dark to mention.

  22

  It appeared to be an angel, a creature of the divine.

  Appeared.

  Theo watched from deep within her psyche, still unable to influence any of her body’s actions.

  She watched herself as she crossed the room, reached out with horribly clawed hands, and swiped away the mixture of chalk and ground bone that made the circle that held the angel within.

  “That’s it,” the angel cooed, as the curve was broken.

  He sighed loudly, stepping from the center of the circle and into the room.

  Theo was immediately perplexed, here was a creature seemingly of Heaven, but the infernal being crowding her insides were not reacting. She remembered the reactions of her previous encounter with the three divine entities at the nursing home and wondered what the difference now was.

  The angel smiled, looking deeply into her eyes.

  “Look at you all in there,” he said. “Now who wants to be the one that helps me keep this form?”

  The angel was right, beings of light and dark normally needed to inhabit a host in order to exist on this plane of existence. Its body would not last long removed from its protective circle.

  She felt movement within her psyche, her humanity shoved aside to make way for another of the demonic. There was s
omething about the demon who strode to the forefront, something familiar.

  It was one of the newbies, and it took complete control of her actions.

  “That’s it,” the angel cooed, urging it on.

  Theo watched in horror as her body left the room.

  Where was she going? What was happening? Her thoughts feverishly raced as the demonic that surrounded her laughed and laughed.

  The guard outside the angel’s room was still unconscious, and she reached down to grab him by a leg, dragging him back into the room.

  She suddenly knew what was to happen, as if the monster that was in control wanted her to know, and she began to panic.

  The newbies had planned to keep the children’s bodies they had possessed, using an ancient blood ritual to allow their demonic natures to remain in this world.

  A blood ritual that with some minor tweaking could be used to do the same for this supposed divine creature that sought to keep its material form.

  No, Theo thought, fighting with all her will for the sake of an innocent life, but it was all for naught.

  Within seconds, the man had been killed, his throat slashed, and the blood that flowed from his body used to adorn the angelic being in symbols that would allow it to remain upon the world of God’s man.

  Theo watched, numbed by the savagery her body had just performed. What was this creature, she asked herself. This being that appeared to be of Heaven though its actions were those of Hell.

  “Smartest thing I ever did, helping to make you what you are,” the being said, admiring the bloody adornment that now covered his body. “Adding my special touch . . . just in case you could prove yourself useful.”

  He smiled at her.

  “And you’ve certainly succeeded in that,” the being said. “But there’s still more that you can help me to do. Would you like that?” he then asked the demons inside her. “Would you like to assist me in the process of changing this world?”

  The demons began to chatter and howl excitedly.

  “Excellent,” the being said. “I need you to take me to a place . . . the place where it will all be set in motion.” He extended his long, boney arms, and she saw that they were covered in scars.